


solitude

by halcyonskies



Series: OTP Challenge [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Benny, Alpha Sam, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Grieving Dean, M/M, Omega Dean, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyonskies/pseuds/halcyonskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything changed, and Dean's life is emptier for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	solitude

**Author's Note:**

> 5th Challenge - Tragedy
> 
> a continuation of [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5101805) fic of mine
> 
> :(

The feathers were a familiar softness against his fingertips. In the dark of his tent, Dean couldn’t see their vibrant color, but it didn’t matter. As soon as he’d seen them – as soon as Castiel had given them to him all those years ago, sweat glistening on his skin, wings still wind-ruffled from his journey into the mountains – their exact shape and hue had been branded into his mind. 

They’d always been a great comfort to him – and now, they were all he had left.

Something stirred at the entrance of his tent, feet shuffling through grass. “Dean?”

A moment after Dean had identified the voice, Sam’s baked-earth scent reached his nose, warm and comforting. He shifted on his bedroll, allowing the necklace to fall back against his collarbone as he rose to his knees.

“What is it, Sammy?” he whispered through the open flap of the tent, keeping his voice low in deference to the early hour and the sleeping wingfolk in the tents pressed close to his own. 

“Benny wants you for the hunt,” Sam responded apologetically, sounding for all the world like this was the worst sort of news he could deliver. It rankled a little, if Dean was being truthful; he hated to be treated as if he was made of glass. He’d do his duty the same as anyone else.

“Tell him I’ll be out in a minute.” Dean closed the flap on Sam’s concerned expression, scooting back until his could retrieve his clothes from the ground. As always, it took him a little longer than it should have to tie up the back of his shirt; after seven years of sharing his life with another, he’d gotten used to having someone else’s help.

It was frustrating, to say the least. Almost a whole year after his mate’s death, Dean felt he should be used to being alone by now. It wasn’t fair that something as simple as getting dressed was still enough to prick his heart like this. 

The sun was just beginning to stretch peachy fingers across the eastern sky by the time Dean found Benny’s hunting party, a handful of sturdy alphas and betas all warming their chilled wings by the embers of last night’s fire. Some of them eyed him with interest, an unmated omega among them, while others kept their looks to themselves, scents ripe with discomfort and pity. Dean didn’t know which was worse.

“Hey, brother,” Benny called out softly, lifting one gray-blue wing in invitation when he saw Dean hovering on the fringe of their circle. As Benny was one of Dean’s oldest friends – and an alpha mated going on twelve years – Dean ducked gratefully into the man’s offered warmth without a fuss. 

“So, where are we headed today?” Dean murmured, accepting the coarse brown bread Benny offered from his own meager breakfast. 

“A ways out,” Benny admitted, scratching at his mousy beard. “There’s not much around here to hunt. We’re going to be searching a long time if we want to find someplace as abundant as our old home.”

The rest of their party’s countenances darkened at that, wings twitching with anger and grief. Dean felt no better being reminded of their old village. It was an old, still-festering wound for their Flock, wingfolk whose families had lived at the base of the mountains for generations. When the blackeyes had invaded, they’d taken no care in who they killed – alphas, betas, omegas, it hadn’t mattered. Men, women, and nestlings had been slaughtered in droves, leaving so many of them without mates or siblings, and they’d eventually given up fighting back. Against an army as vast as the blackeyes’ had been, there was no hope.

What was left of their Flock – a few hundred – had taken what little supplies they had left and fled. Now they were little more than nomads, searching for any place that might be even a fraction as kind to them as their old home had been. 

Dean knew in his heart no place would equal what he’d already lost.

“C’mon, we should get moving,” Benny said, sensing the change in mood. They stood, shook out their wings and, nodding goodbyes to the few that had risen before dawn, took to the skies in search of something to feed their families. 


End file.
